Love Is For Children
by Anguished Reveries
Summary: Everyone thinks the Black Widow believes that love is for children. Little did they know they'd been getting it wrong all along. This a oneshot drabble about the Black Widow and her true views on love. Clintasha pairing. Read and review!


Author's Note: I literally wrote this now, in the middle of the night. And even though I read it through a couple of times, there's bound to be grammatical errors and issues with punctuation. So bear with me. Read and leave a review!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Avengers in any way, shape, or form. Please don't sue me.

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Love is for children. That was the phrase that anyone got whenever they asked the Black Widow if love was what had prompted her defection to S.H.I.E.L.D. Little they know they had been getting the wrong answer.

When Clint had first asked her about love, and if she'd ever loved anyone, her initial reaction was to recoil. Or to hit him. Then she'd thought about it.

Love. A strange four-letter word that was an unknown concept to the steely-eyed assassin. But it hadn't always been that way.

She remembered, even through the increasingly thicker hazes of the memory wipes and drugs the Red Room had pumped her full of, what her family had been like. What her family had meant.

They hadn't been rich. But that was okay. Because Natalia had everything she wanted. A loving mother, a doting father, and a beautiful name. Her teddy bear, Mikhail, she called him, was her trusted confidant. She never remembered not having him, because she'd gotten him as a baby. Mikhail bore her childish secrets and frivolous desires. She knew him as well as she knew herself, from the tips of his frayed ears to the small blue stain on his stomach that came because she'd accidentally spilled a drop of Downy (the softener) on him.

She recalled the walks through the rundown, mostly cement park with her parents, the way they held her hands so tight that she often laughed and asked them if they would ever let go. Later she wishes they never did. She missed the way her mother had brushed her fiery curls, a trait inherited from her grandmother, she had told her. She longed for the feel of her father's rough, callused hands on her cheeks as he tweaked her nose and called her his little 'milaya,' meaning 'darling' in Russian.

But try as she might, she could not summon their voices. Those were the first things to fade in one's memory. She could only hear their screams.

Little Natalia was clutching Mikhail as she peered up through the small window near her bed and watched a spider weave its web. The stars looked so funny through the gossamer strands that divided the night sky. The spider was shiny and black, with a bright crimson hourglass tattooed on its back that screamed danger. Its body was sleek, and it was quick and agile in its movements, confident in its abilities. Natalia smiled at that. One day, she wanted to weave something as pretty. Her eyes fluttered closed as she drifted off into dreams of webs and stars.

The harsh smell of smoke brought the young girl to her senses. Coughing, she narrows her eyes to slits as the ash stings her eyes. "Mama!" She screamed, "Papa!"

Men thundered into her room, dressed all in black. They grabbed the screaming child from her bed, wrenching the plush toy from her grip and tossing it down to be engulfed in the flames that were quickly spreading. "Mikhail!"

Her parents' desperate shouts were torture to her ears. As they carried her out of the stifling heat, her lungs began to work again, and she shrieks for her parents. Her mother is visible through the sheen of tears in her eyes, leaning out of the window and reaching for her daughter. Though she cannot hear her voice after all of these years, she can read her mother's lips. "Ya lublu tebya! Ya lublu tebya, milaya moya!"

The last words her mother ever told her were simple. "I love you! I love you, my darling!"

Ivan Petrovich had called her 'darling' too. Suddenly, the name was no longer appealing. And months later, when the treatments and the training had stripped away her humanity, leaving her with only scraps of Natalia, she had showed them an act of defiance. But it was an act they would not recognize, because it was one of the only things they didn't know about her.

The Red Room knew many things, but they hadn't known about the spiderweb that had blossomed on her windowsill. That was when she became the Black Widow. That was why she wore the bloody hourglass on her belt. It was the blood of her family, the blood of her victims, and it told the world who she was. It was a warning. The Black Widow was deadly.

And when Barton had asked her about love, her answer was soft spoken. Love had been stamped out of her the instant the flames consumed the only people in the world she knew and cared about. To her, love was forbidden.

"Love is forbidden," she had muttered, her eyes downcast. And she had said it so low that he misheard. And when he repeated it back to her, incorrect, like the final repetition in the children's game of Telephone, she hadn't bothered to fix it.

"Love is for children," he said. Either way, love was not an option for the Black Widow.

Either way, love was inconceivable. What did she know about love? It was foolish and idiotic, a weakness that got people killed. And yet, it brought out some of the best and worst traits of humanity. Love made people throw themselves in front of one another when she aimed her gun. Love made people beg and plead at her feet for their life. Love made people falter. Love made people weak.

In her mind, it was a blessing and a curse to have had it ripped away from her so quickly. It made the world around her so much sharper. But it had also made it all the more darker.

She curled her lip in disgust every time she caught the adoring gazes of men on her. They truly thought they cared. They truly thought _she_ cared. It was laughable, and her hatred of the petty emotion made the killing all the more easier. Who did they think they were fooling anyhow? Natasha had studied feelings. She manipulated, warped, and twisted those of the people around her to meet her own needs.

Love was nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain. Fleeting and fast, putting faith in love was like playing Russian Roulette with all the chambers of the pistol loaded. Someone was bound to die.

It was flawed and nonsensical. Who would willingly open themselves to another person completely? It was impossible to not have secrets in a relationship. She scoffed whenever she saw a wedding band on a person's finger. Didn't they know what they were getting into? It was always bound to fail.

Her parents had loved her. And where were they now? Nothing but ash and cinders. Her parents had vowed to never leave her. Love was nothing more than a series of empty promises. Like all things, it would wear down with time. Of that she was sure.

Love is forbidden. Love is for children. Love is tragedy waiting to strike. In the end, people would leave. Natasha would be all alone again, and the world would become so much simpler.

In a world forged by half-truths and lies, things like love and trust defied all laws of reason. Natasha would never allow herself to be swayed by them. It was a liability she could not afford to succumb to.

And then Barton had to open his mouth and say the words that made her think twice. "If love is for children, then I'll be a child. As long as we can be children together."

Those words had terrified her like nothing else in the world could.

Try as she might, she couldn't stop the cracks forming in her supposedly impenetrable shield. Blinding clarity came to her as she realized just what the Black Widow had been all along. A facade, a mask, someplace to hide. The Black Widow's persona was what she had clung to to survive. Bu that was then. This is now. Here, in a world where loyalty and sacrifice had made them defeat the odds... Natasha Romanoff was just another cover.

She'd taken on the name to protect herself. And now, Natalia was fighting to get out. The little girl who'd believe in magic and fairy tales, who'd eagerly wished for a prince to sweep her off her feet, was still alive.

She had just been asleep, for a little while.

All this time, all these years, she'd been cowering from her greatest fear. And it turned of to be her saving grace. "Do not be afraid, milaya moya. Do not be afraid." Tears spring to her eyes as the long-lost words of her father resurface. She had _heard _his _voice _for the first time in_ years_.

He'd said those words to her when she was younger. Full of youth and innocence, she'd been vastly different back then. She'd also been afraid to dance in the small recital her ballet studio held every year. Her dad practically killed himself working to pay for those classes. And her father had said those words to her minutes before the performance. Everything had gone away, the nagging worries retreating like the shadows at dawn. She had danced, and she had been free.

It was time to be free once more.

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Author's Note: So, what did you think? Leave me review, please! Oh, and bonus points to anyone who caught the Dollhouse reference! ;)


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